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Catherine McKenna is ‘making work-life balance part of the conversation’

“(Catherine McKenna) has made it clear she’s very committed to her career and very committed to her family. They’re not competing, they’re working in harmony. She’s making work-life balance part of the conversation,” said Nora Spinks, of the Vanier Institute of the Family.

Catherine McKenna, environment minister, has said publicly she will be available for work until 5.30 p.m. and after 9 p.m. to fit in family time. (Sean Kilpatrick / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Google employee Dalya Gershtein lets off a littlle steam and gets some exercise on the climbing wall inside the Google offices in Kitchener. (Peter Lee / Record staff file photo)

Catherine McKenna is not the first Canadian to rebel publicly against the tyranny of work.

Canadians have flirted with unplugging from office email with overnight bans once dubbed Blackberry Blackouts.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada encouraged its employees not to send work emails between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. back in 2009.

“Freedom 6-to-6” — a similar after-hour email taboo — was the brainchild of pharmaceutical company Pfizer Consumer Healthcare Canada a decade ago.

“When Pfizer was recruiting top students on campus, their acceptance rate on job offers that year jumped to 100 per cent — which is unheard of; the usual acceptance rate is about 65 per cent,” said Nora Spinks, Chief Executive Officer of Canada’s Vanier Institute of the Family.

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“Compelling research shows those who are the most successful are those who are ‘dual-centric’ — focused equally on work and personal life,” she said. “If you take care of yourself, your mental well-being and your physical health, you’re in a position to pursue opportunities at work and also have deep, rich relationships with people, with your partner, your children.”

And smart employers are those who make that balance possible, said Spinks.

Whether it’s the switch by Swedish companies to a six-hour workday, or France’s debate about whether to stretch its 35-hour work week, or Canada’s contemplation of extending parental leave benefits to 18 months from 50 weeks, the dangers of unrelenting work demands are a global problem.

“When the talent crunch hits, employers who don’t offer flexibility will suffer, because millennials have watched their parents kill themselves by working really hard, sometimes only to be laid off,” said Spinks, whose organization studies and promotes work-life balance.

“The millennial generation will give you 150 per cent at work, but they also want time with their family, and if their employer won’t give it to then, they’ll start their own company.”

McKenna, Canada’s new environment minister, has said publicly she will be available for work until 5.30 p.m. and after 9 p.m. to give herself uninterrupted time with her family in between.

“In the 24/7 world we’re in, we have to re-define what’s reasonable, the way unions did during the Industrial Revolution. Catherine McKenna is demonstrating extraordinary leadership and courage by setting her own personal policy and communicating it to all,” said Spinks.

“She’s made it clear she’s very committed to her career and very committed to her family. They’re not competing, they’re working in harmony. She’s making work-life balance part of the conversation.”

The Institute will release a report Friday that looks at workplace innovations across the country that help work-life balance. The report cites a credit union in British Columbia, for example, that encouraged employees to set up a home office and gave them the funds to buy a shredder and locked cabinet. It has seen a return on this investment of 300 per cent.

Beyond a certain number of working hours a week, studies show a workaholic will develop behaviors that interfere in a person’s effectiveness, said Spinks. They exercise less, eat more fast food, drink more caffeine, more alcohol, take more over-the-counter medications for stomach problems and muscle aches, spend less time volunteering and are less likely to vote.

“We all set our own personal (work-life) policy by how we act, whether we realize it or not,” said Spinks.

“We have to change the culture.”

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